NHS to get £30bn boost over three years at expense of other services

The Guardian

9 hours ago

The NHS is set to receive a £30bn funding boost in the spending review next week, at the expense of other public services.
The Department of Health is expected to emerge as the biggest winner on Wednesday with a 2.8% increase to its day-to-day spending budget over a three-year period, amounting to a £30bn rise by 2028.
This amounts to a £17bn real-terms increase according to the Times, which first reported the figure.
The cash injection will come at the expense of other public services such as policing and local councils, which are facing real-terms cuts in the spending review.
Ministers are planning to put the increase in health spending, as well as plans for over £100bn in capital investment, at the centre of their pitch to the public this week.
Keir Starmer has pledged that by the next election, 92% of patients in England waiting for planned treatment will be seen within 18 weeks of being referred. NHS data suggests about 60% of people are currently seen within this time.
NHS figures released last month showed the overall number of patients on waiting lists had risen slightly from 6.24 million to 6.25 million.
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has acknowledged that she had been forced to rebuff requests for funding from some departments because of the tight economic situation. She has insisted the blame lies with Conservatives and has declined to reassess her self-imposed rules on borrowing and spending.
Speaking in Manchester this week, the chancellor said despite a £190bn increase in funding over the spending review period 'not every department will get everything that they want next week and I have had to say no to things that I want to do too'. The Foreign Office and Department for Culture, Media and Sport are thought to be facing some of the deepest cuts.
Economists have warned that the chancellor faces 'unavoidably' tough choices when she sets out the departmental spending plans. The Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank has said defence and the NHS will dominate on 11 June.
The Home Office has been lobbying heavily for more funding, with Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, warning that cuts threaten progress towards two of the prime minister's 'missions' — halving knife crime and halving violence against women and girls.
Police chiefs including Mark Rowley, the head of the Metropolitan police service, warned Starmer directly in a letter this week that they would face 'stark choices' about which crimes they investigate if the Treasury pushes ahead with cuts.
One of the areas in which the Home Office has sought to cut spending is on hotels to temporarily house asylum seekers in the UK.
But according to figures published on Saturday, the department plans to spend about £2.2bn of foreign aid to support asylum seekers this financial year. This is only marginally less than the £2.3bn spent in 2024-2025.
Asylum seekers and their families are housed in temporary accommodation if they are waiting for the outcome of a claim or an appeal and have been assessed as not being able to support themselves independently. International rules allow countries to count first-year costs of supporting refugees as overseas development assistance.
A total of 32,345 asylum seekers were being housed temporarily in UK hotels at the end of March this year, down 15% from the end of December. The Home Office said it was 'urgently taking action to restore order and reduce costs', which would cut the amount spent to support asylum seekers and refugees in the UK.